Flattery is deadly, and before you start flattering others, you must first flatter yourself. The reason it is such a deadly sin is that it is the sin that hides from you your clear need to repent. Flattery rushes up to you as soon as the Holy Spirit has convicted you of something, and hastens to assure you that it “is not that bad.”
“Only human,” “faults on both sides,” and my “motives were good” are all ways we tend to flatter ourselves. It is true that some practitioners of worm theology in the history of the church have tried to make themselves out to be worse than they actually are—and yet, even here, there is a hidden source of secret pride. But most of us like our self-flattery straight up. We take ordinary sin, sin as ugly as a mutant chimpanzee, and instead of killing it, we put earring and lipstick on it. We tell ourselves soothing lies instead of the hard truth.
In what areas do we tell ourselves lies? In what areas do we pretend that we are not sinning, when we clearly and obviously are? We do it with harsh correction of our children. We do it with lying manipulations of our parents. We do it by being catty to the new girl in our class. We do it by mentally undressing women we are not married to. We do it by flaking on our responsibilities, and then trying to make someone else the fall guy. We do it with chintzy little donations so that we can tell ourselves how generous we are. We do it by being so busy we neglect our Bibles, and then priding ourselves on our work ethic. We do it by failing to confess our sins honestly and accurately.